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I Loaded the Occult Panel

Chapter 8: Appendix C · Oct 30, 2026

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Chapter List (554)

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1 Chapter 1: Breathing 2026-10-30
2 Chapter 2: Stop the Investigation 2026-10-30
3 Chapter 3: Spirit Board 2026-10-30
4 Chapter 4: Approaching Science 2026-10-30
5 Chapter 5: [Learning] 2026-10-30
6 Chapter 6: Cicero Cup 2026-10-30
7 Chapter 7: Mrs. MacNeil 2026-10-30
8 Chapter 8: Appendix C 2026-10-30
9 Chapter 9: Hidden Disciplines 2026-10-30
10 Chapter 10: Clement Antiquities 2026-10-30
11 Chapter 11: I Am a Student! 2026-10-30
12 Chapter 12: Behind the Veil 2026-10-30
13 Chapter 13: Moderation 2026-10-30
14 Chapter 14: Fellow Travelers 2026-10-30
15 Chapter 15: Tides of Parallelism 2026-10-30
16 Chapter 16: Breathing Lv.2 2026-10-30
17 Chapter 17: Knowledge Contamination 2026-10-30
18 Chapter 18: Introduction to Breathing Methods 2026-10-30
19 Chapter 19: Old Money 2026-10-30
20 Chapter 20: Kept Man 2026-10-30
21 Chapter 21: Surrounded by Beautiful Girls 2026-10-30
22 Chapter 22: The Invitation 2026-10-30
23 Chapter 23: Vampire Strain 2026-10-30
24 Chapter 24: Voice of the Dead 2026-10-30
25 Chapter 25: The Basement 2026-10-30
26 Chapter 26: Reenactment 2026-10-30
27 Chapter 27: Fog Wall Spell 2026-10-30
28 Chapter 28: Caught in the Act 2026-10-30
29 Chapter 29: Rank 2026-10-30
30 Chapter 30: The Three Major Directions 2026-10-30
31 Chapter 31: Newcomer 2026-10-30
32 Chapter 32: Chicken Leg 2026-10-30
33 Chapter 33: Seal Identification 2026-10-30
34 Chapter 34: Thus Far 2026-10-30
35 Chapter 35: Human Roadblock 2026-10-30
36 Chapter 36: He Who Dares Wins 2026-10-30
37 Chapter 37: Tongue as a Sword 2026-10-30
38 Chapter 38: Gift 2026-10-30
39 Chapter 39: Flower Moon Street 2026-10-30
40 Chapter 40: Evelyn’s Dream 2026-10-30
41 Chapter 41: Ashford 2026-10-30
42 Chapter 42: Changing Feet 2026-10-30
43 Chapter 43: Gatekeeper 2026-10-30
44 Chapter 44: Supernatural Item 2026-10-30
45 Chapter 45: Gargoyle 2026-10-30
46 Chapter 46: I Am No Longer Involved 2026-10-30
47 Chapter 47: Hunter Training 2026-10-30
48 Chapter 48: One Wall Away 2026-10-30
49 Chapter 49: Fire Worship Temple Pillar 2026-10-30
50 Chapter 50: Copper Coin and Censer 2026-10-30

Starting Monday, Richard officially had a deluxe meal on his plate.

Warren was generous: Richard could order whatever he wanted from the cafeteria, as long as he had the room for it.

Every bite of protein and fat Richard ate went toward filling out his paper-thin frame.

He honored his end of the bargain just as readily.

For twenty minutes after lunch, Richard reviewed the key points of their Latin class with Warren in a corner of the cafeteria.

He kept things simple. He broke down the roots, tied the conjugation logic together with the most basic framework, and then made Warren repeat it back to him.

He benefited from the teaching himself.

To explain anything clearly, he had to organize it from beginning to end in his own head first.

The process of teaching others reinforced his own understanding.

The numbers on his Panel provided the most honest feedback.With every effective teaching session, his Learning experience ticked forward.

Not by much, but it was roughly twenty percent faster than simply reading on his own.

The old saying about teaching being the best way to learn held true.

Of course, before tutoring Warren, he had actually spent ten minutes trying to teach Hugh the first conjugation verbs.

When he finished, he asked, ”Make sense?”

Hugh gave an earnest nod. ”Got it. Amo, amas, amat.”

”Next, the second conjugation: moneo, mones...”

”Hold on.” Hugh raised a hand to interrupt. ”That amas after amo—what’s the difference between that and amat again?”

”...I just spent ten minutes explaining that exact difference.”

”Did you?” Hugh tilted his head, looking utterly perplexed.

Richard patted his shoulder.

”Hugh, you’re fine exactly the way you are.”

”That sounds like you’re giving up on me.”

”I absolutely am.”

”...”

Hugh was a lost cause, but the benefits of teaching had been verified.

He just needed to find a student with a slightly better foundation who could keep up with his pace.

Warren had stumbled along at exactly the right time.

During these lunch tutorials, Grey would sit nearby, quietly listening in.

She listened quietly, never interrupting or asking questions.

But Richard noticed that after he finished speaking, she would lower her head and jot down a few lines in her pocket notebook.

On the second day, Grey flipped to a new page, looked up, and asked her first question.

”Williams, you mentioned that the subjunctive endings for the i-stem variants of the third conjugation overlap with the fourth conjugation in two places... Could you repeat which two?”

Richard glanced at her.

Anyone who could ask a question with that level of precision was sharp.

”Sure. Pull your chair over, I’ll draw a chart.”

Grey pulled her chair over.

From that day on, the lunch tutorials expanded from two people to three, and every morning, she started bringing him breakfast.

Usually a hot pie or a sandwich, but always stuffed with hearty fillings.

Warren dubbed it ”Williams’s After-Class Tutoring”;

Mason called it ”the poor teaching the rich, something you don’t see every day.”

Richard ignored them, but his mind had been working ever since Warren cleared the air about that night.

The fact that Warren’s family was willing to go to such lengths proved that this ”other world” held significant weight in high society.

Then again, very few merchant families in Briston could afford to bring a medium to their home in the first place.

Warren occasionally mentioned things about his family:

his father’s business, his mother’s tea parties, and their household ”traditions” around exorcism day.

When he brought up those ”traditions,” his tone always turned vague, glossing over the details.

Richard, however, found his interest in the word ”medium” taking on a new shape.

On Thursday afternoon, their last period was Mr. Hutton’s class.

The lecture covered a comparative analysis of several controversial archaeological reports from the colonial era of the New Continent.

The material was dense. A few boys in the back row were already using their textbooks to hide their dozing faces.

When the final bell rang, the scraping of chairs echoed through the room as students started packing their bags.

Mr. Hutton stood at the podium, unhurriedly stacking his loose pages of lecture notes one by one.

”Williams, stay behind for a moment.”

He didn’t speak loudly. Lost in the clamor of packing, only the first few rows heard him.

Warren slung his bag over his shoulder and raised an eyebrow at Richard as he passed. ”Held back again?”

Richard shook his head, waving him off.

Mr. Hutton waited until the classroom emptied and the footsteps in the corridor faded before he stood up from his chair.

”Holland tells me you’re entering the Cicero Cup?”

”Yes, sir.”

”Good.” The old gentleman’s glasses caught the light.

”You’ve changed quite a bit recently. Holland has brought it up a few times.”

Richard didn’t respond.

Mr. Hutton watched him, then suddenly said something entirely unrelated.

”Williams, do you like the library?”

”It’s alright. I’ve been going a lot recently.”

The old teacher slipped a hand into his pocket and shifted his gaze back out the window.

”On the east side of the third floor, there’s an inconspicuous bookshelf.

Wedged between the geography and agriculture sections, with no category label.”

”Fourth row, seventh slot. You might find something of interest in there.”

Richard looked up, waiting for him to elaborate.

Mr. Hutton fished a small object from his inner pocket and placed it on the edge of the podium.

It was a thin slip of paper folded into quarters, yellowed with age and worn smooth at the edges.

”Hold on to this for now.” He tapped a finger lightly against the paper.

”When you get there, you’ll know what it’s for.”

Richard stepped forward and took the paper.

Between his fingertips, he could feel that the paper was unusually thick, nothing like a standard book page.

”Sir, what is...”

”It’s just a piece of paper,” Mr. Hutton said casually.

”Or it might be nothing at all. It depends on whether you can find a use for it once you’re there.”

He sat back down, picked up a pen, and unhurriedly resumed writing his lecture notes.

”Go on. Don’t delay heading home.”

Richard frowned. He grabbed his bag, said, ”Goodbye, sir,” and walked out of the classroom.

...

The following day, after finishing lunch and his tutoring session, Richard skipped his usual nap in the classroom and headed straight for the library.

Greenwood’s library was a standalone three-story red-brick building, connected to the main teaching block by a covered walkway.

The first and second floors were well-lit by large south-facing windows. The desks and chairs were neatly arranged, and each desk had its own lamp.

During breaks and lunch hours, students would gather here to work on assignments.

The third floor was clearly another world.

The lighting dimmed the moment he reached the top of the stairs.

There were only two windows, and even those were mostly obstructed by the side wall of the teaching block opposite them. The air hung thick with the distinct musty scent of aging paper.

The entire floor was deserted. Richard followed the bookshelf numbers deeper in.

Oversized geographical atlases took up two entire bookcases, their covers stamped with fading coastlines and contour lines.

Beside them sat bound volumes of agricultural journals—rows upon rows of thick-covered books with years embossed along their spines.

Fourth row, seventh slot. Richard reached in and found his target.

The book wasn’t thick, roughly two hundred pages.

The gold lettering had mostly worn away; he had to lean in close to barely make it out.

The title read: ”On the Organizational Forms of Early Agricultural Communities in the Western Continent, and Their Relationship with Natural Cycles”

—”A Comparative Study Based on Seven Field Cases”

The author was credited only by their initials: E.V.M.

The publication details were printed in tiny font at the bottom of the title page: Royal Anthropological Society Affiliated Press, New Calendar Year 1832.

It was a book from over seventy years ago.

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